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Thanks for the link, Simon! The slides don't really show my whole line of thinking and chain of events, so...

Basically, it never occurred to me to put ads into games. I dislike seeing ads myself, and will often stop using a piece of software if there are ads in it. But then I was approached by the people at Greystripe, who had seen the success of Scribattle Lite and explained their take on the ad business. Their offering, instead of banners, is interactive ads that do a full-screen takeover during a dull moment (that you, the developer, choose). So when you've been playing a game for a few minutes, after completing the current level you'll see an ad, which takes over the whole screen, but can easily be clicked on and dismissed. The ads generate a higher CPM than most banner ads, because they are offering the advertiser a more immersive and interactive experience; These ads can include animated, interactive content, including accessing things through a built-in web browser. When the player dismisses the ad, they're back in the game, right where it left off.

Since Scribattle Lite has clearly left the limelight by now, downloads for both are declining rapidly, so the possibility that I'll piss off my Lite users by adding ads is a risk I can afford to take. At the same time, the upcoming version of Scribattle Lite, besides including ads, will also include twice as many levels, plus four discrete game variations/difficulty-levels (corresponding to the four combinations of having/lacking shields for your guys and having/lacking the Noodly Appendage enemy; these variations are also added to the next version of the full Scribattle game), so it's a fairly decent update all around, the one "drawback" being that the user will see some ads between levels now and then.

Unfortunately, updates to both Scribattle and Scribattle Lite have been sitting at Apple for two weeks without being approved, so I can't see how these releases impact overall downloads, conversion rates, user ire, or anything else just yet!